Foundation

Summary

Foundation is a literary work^[1]. Foundation ranks in the top 1% of literary work entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (10,547 views/month).^[2]

Key Facts

• Author: Isaac Asimov^[3]
• Publisher: Gnome Press^[4]
• Genre: science fiction^[5]
• Follows: Foundation's Triumph^[6], Forward the Foundation^[7]
• Followed by: Foundation and Empire^[8]
• Part of the series: Foundation series^[9], Foundation Trilogy^[10]
• Place of publication: New York City^[11]
• Language of work or name: English^[12]
• Country of origin: United States^[13]
• Inception: 1942^[14]
• Publication date: 1951^[15]
• Characters: Hari Seldon^[16], Hober Mallow^[17]
• Cover art by: David A. Kyle^[18]
• Has edition or translation: Foundation^[19], Q120730735^[20], Q121267668^[21], Q131551734^[22], Q137779628^[23], Q137531284^[24]
• Takes place in fictional universe: Foundation universe^[25]
• Title: Foundation^[26]
• Different from: Foundation (2)^[27]
• First line: Gaal Dornick był chłopcem z prowincji, który nigdy jeszcze nie widział Trantora.^[28]
• Epigraph: HARI SELDON–... born in the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069. The dates are more commonly given in terms of the current Foundational Era as – 79 to the year 1 F.E. Born to middle-class parents on Helicon, Arcturus sector (where his father, in a legend of doubtful authenticity, was a tobacco grower in the hydroponic plants of the planet), he early showed amazing ability in mathematics. Anecdotes concerning his ability are innumerable, and some are contradictory. At the age of two, he is said to have ...
  ... Undoubtedly his greatest contributions were in the field of psychohistory. Seldon found the field little more than a set of vague axioms; he left it a profound statistical science...
  .... The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is the biography written by Gaal Dornick who. as a young man, met Seldon two years before the great mathematician's death. The story of the meeting ...^[29], TERMINUS–... Its location (see map) was an odd one for the role it was called upon to play in Galactic history, and yet as many writers have never tired of pointing out, an inevitable one. Located on the very fringe of the Galactic spiral, an only planet of an isolated sun, poor in resources and negligible in economic value, it was never settled in the five centuries after its discovery, until the landing of the Encyclopedists...
  It was inevitable that as a new generation grew, Terminus would become something more than an appendage of the psychohistorians of Trantor. With the Anacreonian revolt and the rise to power of Salvor Hardin, first of the great line of...^[30], THE FOUR KINGDOMS – The name given to those portions of the Province of Anacreon which broke away from the First Empire in the early years of the Foundational Era to form independent and short-lived kingdoms. The largest and most powerful of these was Anacreon itself which in area...
  ... Undoubtedly the most interesting aspect of the history of the Four Kingdoms involves the strange society forced temporarily upon it during the administration of Salvor Hardin...^[31], TRADERS–... and constantly in advance of the political hegemony of the Foundation were the Traders, reaching out tenuous fingerholds through the tremendous distances of the Periphery. Months or years might pass between landings on Terminus; their ships were often nothing more than patchquilts of home-made repairs and improvisations; their honesty was none of the highest; their daring...
  Through it all they forged an empire more enduring than the pseudo-religious despotism of the Four Kingdoms...
  Tales without end are told of these massive, lonely figures who bore half-seriously, half-mockingly a motto adopted from one of Salvor Hardin's epigrams, "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" It is difficult now to tell which tales are real and which apocryphal. There are none probably that have not suffered some exaggeration....^[32], TRADERS-... With psychohistoric inevitability. economic control of the Foundation grew. The traders grew rich; and with riches came power....
  It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader. It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes...^[33]
• Form of creative work: novel^[34], fix-up^[35]

Why It Matters

Foundation has Wikipedia articles in 20 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.^[36] Foundation is known by 29 alternative names across languages and contexts.^[37]